The Day of Dread
by K Kelly
Summary: Katherine Plumber isn't afraid of much, but the ACT is definitely at the top of her list. WARNING: If you've taken the ACT or SAT you might find this amusing, if you haven't taken these tests then use discretion before reading, because it may scar you for life!


**I know I said I wasn't going to update, but this is called therapy. Let's just say that, subtracting Jack from the equation Katherine and I had VERY similar ACT experiences**. **And what can I say? Singing is my life and writing keeps me sane**

**ALL ACT QUESTION ARE COMPLETELY FABRICATED AND NOT RELATED IN ANY WAY TO THE TEST**

**STANDARD NEWSIES DISCLAIMER APPLIES: I do not own Jack or Katherine, I only own my experience**

**Enjoy!**

The day came too soon, the dreaded, the awful, ACT day. It seemed like just yesterday that Katherine had been struggling to register for the monster test. She had already taken the PSAT so she was hoping this wouldn't be too much more difficult. Boy, was she ever wrong. First of all the PSAT was like a practice test so there wasn't as much pressure, whereas with this test if you didn't do well you'd have to…re-take the test. Katherine Plumber has never had to re-take a test in her life and she isn't about to start now, especially not with a test this importance. This test is detrimental to her future, a make or break, I mean what kind of journalism program would admit a student who had to take the ACT twice? No, she's going do this and she's going do it right, the first time.

"Ace calm down it's just a test."

"Shh! I'm trying to concentrate."

Jack rolls his eyes, "The test hasn't started yet."

She makes a face at him, "I'm concentrating on keeping my concentration." She squeezes her eyes closed trying to recall every skill and lesson from her last eleven years of school.

She can hear him groan loudly at her response, "Katherine are you even hearing yourself?"

Her eyes fly open and she whispers angrily, "Jack Kelly if I fail this test I am going to hold you personally responsible!"

"Come one Ace you've never failed a test."

Looking up he sees her eyeing the test room anxiously, "There's a first time for everything."

Gosh, she is taking this really seriously. Personally he's treating this like any other test, meaning that he did a heck of a lot of cramming last night. No matter the way he sees it art schools aren't going to care too much if he can finish a bunch of Math or English questions in a short amount of time, they're gonna be too busy caring about how well (or how badly) he can draw. The next time he looks up at her she is clutching cross-body bag so tightly that her knuckles are turning white. Gently he pries her fingers from their death-grip, and encloses her small hands in his larger ones, "Katherine you gotta relax, getting all worked up isn't gonna help you."

She bites her lip so hard he's afraid she'll break the skin, "I know, I just, I mean I don't want to…"

"To what?"

A voice rings out across the hall, "Students, please proceed quietly to your testing rooms".

Her hand slips from his grasp as she walks towards the rooms marked, **ACT Plus Writing**, he walks in the opposite direction towards the other groups of rooms (since writing isn't really his strong suit) the crowd separates them so quickly that he almost misses her response, "Fail."

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Alright that first section wasn't so bad, but compared to Math, Grammar is definitely one of her stronger points.

"Students we will now proceed to Test 2 the Math portion of this test. All questions can be answered without a calculator, but if you have a test appropriate calculator you may pull it out now."

Thankfully, Katherine had made sure to get the right type of calculator. Sure she had made a late Walmart trip the night before to get it, since she hadn't realized that her TI-98 and TI-72 were both prohibited. Jack had been sweet to offer to come with her when she told him, but it had probably been more to escape his impossible brain-breaking cram session that to help her look for a TI-30x. She was touched by his offer, but declined sweetly reminding him that he was studying. Of course that was when she was still feeling confident, I mean she had spent hours upon hours studying. She had timed herself writing essays on every conceivable topic. But even all that preparation simply could bar the utter panic that set in the moment she sat at the desk and now…

"OH MY GOSH WHERE IS MY CALCULATOR!?" Katherine never breaks the rules (unless they're stupid or unjust) so her scream was internal, but her panic was real and written all over her face.

The teacher sees her concern, "Miss, is everything alright?"

"M-my…"

"Yes?"

Suddenly while her hand is frantically searching her bag her fingers brush the blessed plastic of her elusive calculator, "Never mind."

Crisis averted.

"Alright now that everyone is settled we're going to begin, open your books to test 2 and start working…now."

She skims the first question and grimaces; it's geometry. Correction to former statement: Crisis commencing.

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"Come on Katherine, just breathe, the guy next to you is probably a math genius that's why he's done so early. You're a smart girl just focus, you have plenty of time."

Quickly she glances up at the clock and her heart sinks. The sound of the instructor's voice calling "Five minutes", only serves to deepen her horror. How had time gotten away from her? Quickly she fills in the rest of the bubbles hoping and praying that at least half of the answers are right.

"Stop, pencils down, look up, and close your books. You have completed test 2, please take a break and be back in exactly twenty minutes."

The test book slams shut and the sound of paper hitting paper is louder than she anticipated. Oops, oh well.

Slowly, reluctantly she rises from the desk and exits the room. She doesn't really want to stop, more than anything she just wants to get the whole thing over with. As soon as she steps foot outside the room she makes a beeline for the furthest and most secluded looking bench, she doesn't want anyone to break her concentration. Alas it was not to be, all of the students were herded to the main hall and the doors were locked behind them. Now normally Katherine has nothing against crowds, but right now all she wants is peace and quiet to gather her thoughts and listen to her breath whistling shallowly in and out of her lungs.

"Hey Katherine!"

She turns and there is Jack smiling that same cocky grin she sees every day, but she watches it's brightness fade when he catches sight of her own dismal expression.

"Gosh Ace, what happened to you? You're so pale and serious that I'd swear that was a torture chamber and not a testing room."

She's not even close to being in the mood for his attempt at humor, "It might as well be. The next time they catch a spy they might as well skip the Chinese Water Torture, the ACT would be much more effective. Somehow it manages to numb your mind while simultaneously causing you inhumane amounts of physical and mental pain. Sitting there for hours hunched over, scared to move, and trying to remember how to breathe."

Jack thinks she's kidding, "Seriously Katherine, it can't be that bad."

Her eyes are staring sightlessly at the ground slowly she looks up and if anything her expression only hardens more, "Your right it's not that bad…it's worse."

Now he's starting to get concerned, Jack's pretty sure he has never seen Katherine go this long without smiling or showing some emotion. Her face is blank and drawn, her usually lively and vivacious eyes are vacant.

"Man, I'm glad that I opted out of the writing test."

She laughs joylessly, almost sarcastically, "Jack, we haven't even started that yet."

Before he can say another word a teacher unlocks the doors and all the students rush back into their classrooms. Katherine practically runs to her seat, she doesn't want to lose a single second of testing time.

"Good to have you back, please place your calculators under your desk and open to page three.'

She flips through the pages holding her breath, but she exhales when she sees the title at the top of the page **Reading Test**. Reading, now that she can do.

Approximately twenty minutes later poor Jack is agonizing between two passage descriptions and wishing that he had studied more. Meanwhile Katherine is still breathing normally, and hey, she even finished this section ten minutes early giving her extra time to double check her work. A quick glance at her answer sheet and one or two changes later she puts down her pencil with three minutes to spare. Ah, it's good to be back on top. The teacher calls time and she is already sitting back in her chair breathing deep sighs of pleasure and relief.

"Close your books, pencils down, and look at me."

The pure satisfaction is still burning, her pencil is already down and her book is closed. But the feeling is short lived, as she come comes face to face with the final multiple choice test, the dreaded and ever unpredictable: **Science Test**. It's going be a very long forty-five minutes.

At the same time that Katherine is choking on terror at the sight of the science section, Jack is finally seeing questions that make sense. He's an artist, questions about grammar or numbers might as well be written in Latin, but this, this he gets. Without even trying, the diagrams sketch themselves out in his head, and the provided charts suddenly become nothing more than an answer key. This is going to be cake.

However, for Katherine this is worse than a nightmare, it's a daymare because it's real and no matter how hard she pinches herself she isn't going to wake up. Suddenly she realizes that she's been staring at the same problem for the last three minutes and she still has twenty questions left.

"How am I supposed to know what that word means? Is this question referring to graph 1 or 2? WHO ON EARTH CARES HOW ACID CONCENTRATIONS AFFECTS NATIONAL FORESTS? No, seriously who needs to know that?"

As these thoughts are filing through her head she hers the words of doom being uttered, "Five minutes left."

"NO! Okay just keep breathing and make quick educated guesses. There are no penalties for wrong answers and you're bound to get at least some of the right, aren't you?"

"Time's up pencils down, books closed."

Yes, of course she knows the drill. Her pencil drops and all she can do now is hope that she did half-way decent and that the writing portion isn't on some weird incomprehensible topic, that would be the last straw. The teacher gives the signal and she breaks the seal glancing nervously at the topic, oh thank goodness it's **Pollution**. All of the panic subsides, she reaffirms her firm grip on her sanity and silently reminds herself that she is in the home stretch, just…thirty…more…minutes…almost…done.

"Katherine! Hey are you alright?" She looks upset and confused.

"Hmm? Oh yeah, fine… I just thought I'd do better. I mean the English writing sections weren't bad, but honestly, I think I almost died during the Math and Science parts.

"Well at least it's over."

A look of pain crosses her features, "Unless I failed."

He puts an arm around her shoulders trying to remove some of her still visible tension, "You didn't." ****

Comfort isn't what she wants, she wants relief, knowledge, "How do you know that?"

He smiles at her, "Because stupid, you're smart.

A smile cracks reluctantly from her lips, "That doesn't even make sense."

"Yeah it does. You are smart, but you're acting stupid because you can't seem to remember all those A's and high test scores that you get. They don't just disappear, because you took the ACT."

Her smile widens ever so slightly, "I know that."

"Then why don't you act like it?"

She shrugs and they both fall silent, but the quiet doesn't last long, "It's good to see you alive again."

His voice shakes her from her thoughts and she glances at him sideways, "What in the world are you talking about?"

He shrugs back at her and folds his arms, "Seriously Ace, I almost wanted to make you mad at me just so there would be expression on your face. You were just so…blank."

Now instead of vacancy her expression is thoughtful, "I felt blank, like I had forgotten every concept I'd ever learned and everything I've ever accomplished."

"Well you know what?"

"What?"

"Even if you forget all that, I promise I'll always remember it; err the accomplishments not the concepts."

Her laughter rings out and it's like music to his ears after hours of silence. "And I'll remember that you remember and then I won't forget anymore."

Teasingly he folds his arms and tries to imitate her voice, "I believe that was called 'redundancy' Miss Plumber."

Poor Katherine groans, "Ugh, when Jack starts correcting your grammar you KNOW you are completely brain dead!"

Jack chuckles in response, "Come on Ace I'll walk you home."

**I hope that was more amusing to write than it was to experience. Good luck to all taking the ACT and SAT this spring, remember to breathe, try not to die, and SOAK THOSE SUCKERS. ;P**

**Please read and review this, and I won't stop writing. (Follows and favorites are also more than welcome ;)**

**K. Kelly**


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